The Parish of St. Margaret

The Parish of St. Margaret.

The parish of St Margaret is stated to have comprised in the seventeenth century the townlands of Dunbro, Dunsoghly, Harristown, Johnstown, Kilresk, Kingstown Great and Little, Newtown, Portmellog, and St. Margaret.

It comprises now the townlands of Barberstown (i.e., Barbedor’s town), Dubber (i.e., tober, a well), Dunbro (i.e., the dun of the mansion), Dunsoghly, Harristown, Kingstown, Merryfalls (i.e., Merivale’s land), Millhead, Newtown, Pickardstown, Portmellig (i.e., the bank of the marshy place), Sandyhill, Shanganhill (i.e., the hill of the ants). **

The Castle of Dunsoghly, with some notice of Dunbro and other places.**

Excepting by the agriculturist and the antiquary the parish of St. Margaret is now forgotten. To the former it is recalled by an annual fair to which it gives name, and to the latter by references to mediaeval remains which lie within its limits.

It is situated to the east of the parishes of Cloghran and Ward, from which it is, however, separated by part of the parish of Finglas; and although high roads to the north of Ireland pass not far from its western and eastern borders, no main thoroughfare crosses its lands.

But the parish of St. Margaret was in the past one of the best-known places in the neighbourhood of Dublin. Before the Anglo-Norman invaders landed in Ireland Dunsoghly and Dunbro had a history, although now lost; and for 500 years after the Anglo-Norman settlement they had in their owners a succession of notable persons who made them the place of their chief residence. **

Under Mediaeval Owners. **

Although there can be no certainty as to the description of dwellings erected by the first owners of Dunsoghly and Dunbro, there is little doubt that about the year 1284 Dunbro became the site of a dwelling rivalling in magnificence the Dublin castle of that time.

Towards the close of the twelfth century the lands of Dunbro, which were estimated to contain one carucate, were granted by Ring John, then Count of Mortaigne and Lord of Ireland, to Robert de St. Michael, the owner of Cruagh; but during the thirteenth century the connexion of the St. Michael family with Dunbro, as with Cruagh and its dependency Roebuck, came to an end, and Dunbro appears as the property of a great ecclesiastic, Stephen de Fulebourne, then the chief governor of Ireland.

As a brother of the order of St. John of Jerusalem, Stephen de Fulebourne had become known to Henry the Third, and was sent to Ireland to guard the interests of Queen Eleanor, to whom King Henry had assigned a tithe on Irish ecclesiastical benefices granted to him by the Pope. From that time brother Stephen reaped the fruit of royal favour, and was preferred by Edward the First to the highest places in Church and State. In 1274 the bishopric of Waterford and the treasurership of Ireland were conferred upon him; in 1281 the great office of justiciary was entrusted to him; and in 1286, two years before his death took place, the archbishopric of Tuam fell to him.

But his rapid preferment excited jealousy and distrust; and on more than one occasion he was forced to wait upon King Edward, who was then in Wales, to defend himself from charges of misconduct. Although the office of treasurer was subsequently taken from him, his retention in the office of viceroy and promotion to the see of Tuam show that he was successful.

But the number of his relations who enjoyed offices of emolument, and his sumptuous possessions, are indications that so far as self-interest and aggrandizement are concerned, the charges were not groundless.

The sumptuousness of his personal effects is known from an inventory of them made after his death, and this inventory is the more interesting as it shows that his ecclesiastical office was not subordinated to his civil one, and that prolonged residence in his see was usual.

At Tuam there was found in his wardrobe great store of clothing for himself and his retinue, of table linen, and of dried fruits, besides a chest of money, chalices, vestments, and a Bible; in the buttery and kitchen much gold and silver plate; in the armoury, halberds, coats-of-mail, cuirasses, and trappings; and in the stable, fifteen horses, including a palfrey and a hackney, two great horses and sumpter horses; while at Athlone, Fulebourne’s devotion to the Church was evidenced by two mitres and a crozier, a chasuble, a cross of pearls, censers and vases, and many books of devotion.

To Dunbro reference occurs in some of the charges made against him. During the summer of 1284, when he was resident at Dunbro, his enemies reported that, for the purpose of building a town there, he had taken prisage out of timber, stone, and other things in the town and castle of Dublin; and that he was responsible for sending corn to the king from Dunbro and Swords, which was so bad that it was returned.

Not long afterwards his enemies became even bolder, and alleged that he had removed marble fittings from the hall of the castle at Dublin to beautify his own at Dunbro, and that the town of Dublin had a claim against him in respect of locks and timber which he had also carried off. At the same time they returned to their charges about the corn, and said that he had endeavoured to cast the blame upon the sailors who had brought it to England, and had imprisoned and fined them for allowing the corn to be injured, although he was aware that it was unsound before it was delivered to them.

Two ogive-shaped stones, which were found at Dunbro some 80 years ago, were probably relics of a chapel erected there by him; and a field at Dunbro, which bears the name of “the priest’s paddock,” was possibly given by him for the endowment of the chapel.

After the death of Stephen de Fulebourne, his nephew, John de Fulebourne, who had been a government official, succeeded to Dunbro, where, according to his own account, he suffered much persecution from enemies of his uncle. In 1291 he complained that his uncle’s successor as treasurer descended on the manor, and, moved by ill-will and cupidity, made a levy on his corn, as well in the fields as on waggons and in the granary, and on his live stock, which included oxen, cows, and sheep.

Before 1317 Walter de Islip, the ecclesiastical pluralist mentioned as owner of Merrion, had acquired the manor, and he was succeeded by Sir Elias de Ashbourne, the militant judge mentioned in connexion with the lands of Killinniny and Simonscourt, who in 1340 was paying to the Crown a rent of two marks for the manor.

Subsequently Sir Elias’s son, Thomas de Ashbourne, is mentioned as holding it; and afterwards the Crown granted custody of the manor successively to John Serjeant and John Charnell, who in 1422 was paying a rent of 57 shillings for the manor and the lands of Huntstown, in Santry parish, which were estimated to contain together, besides the messuages, more than two carucates of land.

During the period through which the history of Dunbro has been traced the lands of Dunsoghly were also the site of a dwelling of considerable pretensions. It was the home of the family of Finglas, members of which had probably become possessed of the lands as an adjunct to others held by them in the adjoining manor of Finglas, from which they took their cognomen.

As the owners of Dunsoghly, the Finglases were recognized as persons of importance in the city of Dublin, as well as in the more immediate neighbourhood of their home. In the month of March, 1338, the mayor and bailiffs of Dublin are seen wending their way to Dunsoghly at the request of William de Finglas, who was then in possession, and there they witnessed the execution of a deed, by which he assigned to his son, Hugh de Finglas, two water-mills in the parish of St. Bride, on the river Peddle. William de Finglas had been a ward of the Crown, and custody of his lands and marriage had been vested in his neighbour, Stephen de Fulebourne, who tried to transfer the wardship to his brother Walter, his successor in the see of Waterford. According to a petition made in 1290 by Walter de Fulebourne, the marriage was worth no less than 100 marks, and the lands produced a gain to their custodian of 12 pounds a year.

In the year 1326 William Finglas is mentioned as tenant of the lands of Broghan, in Finglas manor, which are estimated to contain one and a-half carucate ; and his grandson, John, son of Hugh de Finglas, appears as tenant in that manor for a carucate in Ochtermoy and Broghan.

In the first decades of the 15th century Dunsoghly was in the possession of another John Finglas, who was apparently the son of Nicholas Finglas, mayor of Dublin in 1398, and he was succeeded in 1422 by his son Roger, who was then a minor.

In 1424 Roger Finglas was relieved of arrears of rent due to the Crown in respect of the lands of Dunsoghly and Ochtermoy; and subsequently lie is mentioned with his wife Elizabeth as owner of part of the manors of Westpalstown and Cruagh.

In addition to the manors of Dunbro and Dunsoghly, the parish of St. Margaret embraced in mediaeval times a manor called Barberstown. It is mentioned in the year 1297 as the property of the rector of Swords, Iter de Angouleme; but one Thomas de Suyterby had obtained by illicit means possession of it. His entry into it was obtained by the collusion of Richard de Kerdiff, who had purchased the manor for Iter de Angouleme, and finally Richard de Kerdiff found it expedient to undertake to recover the manor for its rightful owner.

Some of the other lands in the parish appear about the year 1420 as part of the estate of Robert Derpatrick, to whom there has been reference under Stillorgan, and formed part of the dowry of his mother and wife. They comprised Henrystown, Donanore, Kingstown, and Merivale’s land. At Henrystown there was a wood, and on the other townlands messuages held by John Blake, John White, Thomas Talloun, John Taillour, Richard Hayward, and Henry Yonge. **

Under Tudor Owners **

The castle of Dunsoghly, now one of the chief examples of 15th-century architecture within the limits of Dublin county, was built probably in the later half of that century. It has been thus described by the President of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland: “The castle of Dunsoghly rises on a fertile plain, with sufficient planting to take off the sense of bareness which is frequently associated with similar remains. As it is approached from the road there are clear traces of earthworks, and it is evident that an irregular space was enclosed, and the fosse filled with water from a little stream that flows close by. A natural mound, now occupied by a modern house and garden to the south-west of the castle, is said to have been the site of the dun, and was probably so, as no trace of another ring fort is visible, but it bears little if any trace of such entrenchment as surrounded Anglo-Norman dwellings.

“The castle of Dunsoghly consists of a tower with rectangular turrets of varying size at each angle, and has to the north remains of later buildings, and probably of a courtyard. The tower, which is built of small masonry, is about seventy feet high, with large long and short quoin stones, and walls four to five feet thick. With its bold turrets, it forms a picturesque object despite the defacement of its windows, which have been modernized with the exception of a few small slits. It had doorways opening into a large room in the basement to the north and west. This room, which measures twenty-seven and a-half feet by nineteen feet, has a round barrel vault, which was turned over wicker centring, as marks, and even twigs, in the masonry show; it must have been a gloomy apartment when the doors were closed, as it had only three very small windows, two being to the south, and one to the east. From it pointed doorways opened into the turrets, the north-eastern one ground-floor. In the tower over the ground-floor there are three stories. The first had a stone floor, and its ceiling corbels were moulded; the second and third had wooden floors, and the corbels were plain. The fire-places lay to the north, their flues forming a massive chimney-stack, which partly rests on small corbels and on the battlements, and, with the exception of one in the top room, the fire-places have all been modernized.

The turrets, in which the walls are about three feet thick, also contained three stories over the ground-floor, with similar wooden floors, but the roofs rested on bold beehive-like domes corbelled, and made of large blocks. The north-western and south-eastern turrets are about fifteen feet square ; the north-eastern and south-western are smaller, being about twelve feet square outside, above a bold batter on the base. The ground-floor room in the north-western turret, which measures inside nine and a-half feet square, has windows in each wall and two ambries, and the second-floor rooms in the south-western and south-eastern turrets have long plain sinks, the former containing also a small garderobe and ambry in a recess. The top room on the south-western turret was probably intended for a prison, and has therefore no doorway from the battlements. The cell was entered by an opening in the crown of the vault, which was closed by a heavy stone slab. It contains also a small opening for food, about five feet above the level of the water table, and a garderobe. The staircase above its first portion is in good condition. It is a spiral one, with wide steps, supported by a strong plain corbelling, and has well preserved squint-loops at the angles. It is without newel or ornament of chisel-dressing. Twenty-four steps lead from the first to the second floor, twenty-one more steps to the third, and twenty-two to the battlements. The battlements have well-made water tables, large slabs covering the joints of the main stones. The roofs of the turrets are accessible by straight narrow flights of ten to thirteen steps, and the north-western and south-eastern contain upper rooms entered by small pointed doors, beside the upper stairs. From the turrets there is a beautiful and extensive view of the fresh plains, of the great range of hills along the southern border of Dublin County, and of the heights of Howth and Lambay.

To one accustomed to the elaborate and ingenious defences of the castles of more western Ireland, the walls of Dunsoghly strongly suggest that its builders had little apprehension of assault. The outside doorways open, without the fence of wooden-holes, shot-holes, or machicolated balconies, directly into the main room ; there are neither loops for defending the stairs, nor means of flanking the outer faces of the turrets, nor remains of outworks which would be more defensible than a modern yard. The slits in the basement were externally splayed at some later period when firearms were in use.

Military defences of a more modern type have been pointed out by the Honorary Secretary of the Society, Mr. Charles McNeill. To the west of the castle a horn-work with two bastions and a fosse is well marked. It abuts on a second stream, and runs back to an old lime-kiln and the remains of a brewery to the north of the castle. Following the second stream to the south there are found another bastion, with probably a trace of a turret, and a line of curtain walls and angles, to a point where the two streams join and are crossed by a bridge on the road. Near this bridge there was probably a horn-work. There is a faint trace of a ditch running back from a salient and turning eastward beside the avenue leading to the castle. A third bastion and a line of ditch, with the foundations of a stone wall, lie eastward from the castle, beside which there are remains of the piers of a large gate. To the north of the castle there was formerly a long reach of earthwork, consisting of a bank twelve feet thick and five or six feet high, which surrounded the castle orchard, in the recollection of Mr. W. Tyrrell, the present owner of the house. Buildings beside the castle to the east were, Mr. McNeill suggests, levelled to open the space beside it in order to make room for the defenders to fire from the loopholes in the basement.”

Contemporaneously with the building of the present castle, Dunsoghly appears as the seat of a branch of the great Meath family of Plunkett. Within the castle walls in the spring of 1480, Thomas Plunkett is seen completing the purchase of the lands of Much Cabragh, in Castleknock parish, through his chaplain (Richard Roger), and in the priest’s room, where he was then “at school,” Thomas Plunkett’s son Christopher comes into view, hearing from the chaplain of his father’s purchase “of 20 nobles a year.” Like many of his forbears, Thomas Plunkett was a lawyer as well as a landed proprietor, and two years later in the spring of 1482 he was raised to the bench as chief justice of the common pleas. In his elevation to a chief seat, he followed in the steps of his father, Robert Plunkett, who had been raised to the bench in 1447 by Henry the Sixth as chief justice of the king’s bench, and also in the steps of his uncle, Thomas Plunkett, who succeeded in 1461 to his brother’s place.

The adherence of the Plunketts to the Geraldine interest, which accounted no doubt in a great measure for the early recognition of their talents, brought Thomas Plunkett into the number of Lambert Simnel’s followers, and is said afterwards to have secured for him, although a chief instrument in the rebellion, a free pardon and retention in his office. But he appears to have become also involved in the rising on behalf of Perkin Warbeck, and for “his divers seditions and transgressions,” he was then heavily fined, and lost his office.

Besides such proof as his occupation of Dunsoghly castle affords, there is evidence that Thomas Plunkett was a man of wealth above his fellows. In part payment of his fine his cupboard could provide such trophies as two gilt salts, a standing cup with a representation of a great griffin’s egg on the cover, a group of 12 pieces with a cover, a double bowl and a pot, two standing cocoanut cups with covers, two mazers and three chased pieces, and it is to be presumed that their removal did not leave the cupboard bare.

But even more striking is his munificence to the church. It is twice recorded in the obits of Christ Church that he presented to it much gold and silver and many vestments, and some years before his death, which occurred in 1519, he assigned, as has been mentioned, to the Priory of the Holy Trinity his lands of Much Cabragh, subject to the life interest of himself and his wife.

The deeds of assignment, which was conditional on a canon being maintained to pray for him and those named by him, show that he was twice married: first to Janet Finglas, and, secondly, to Helen Stranwich, who was alive at the time of the assignment ; and although the castle has been said to have been built by his father, the name of his first wife gives ground for the presumption that lie owed Dunsoghly to her, and was himself the builder of the castle.

For a quarter of a century after Thomas Plunkett’s death in 1519, Dunsoghly castle was occupied by his son, Christopher. As he was old enough when his father bought Much Cabragh to understand the effect of the purchase, he must have been at least 50 years of age when he succeeded to the castle, and he had been long married, and had children of mature years. His wife was a daughter of his father’s colleague, Philip Bermingham, chief justice of the king’s bench, and by her he had three sons, the eldest of whom, maintaining the legal tradition of his family, adopted the Bar as his profession.

Before 1547 Dunsoghly castle had passed to Sir John Plunkett, chief justice of the queen’s bench, as Christopher Plunkett’s eldest son became in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and was his chief residence until his death. In the last decade of Henry the Eighth’s reign there is an indication that John Plunkett was well known to those in high places, and not long after his succession to Dunsoghly he appears at the right hand of Edward the Sixth’s lord deputy, Sir Edward Bellingham. His post was hardly one that an embryo judge would now fill, and his chief duties seem to have been the provisioning and furnishing of the houses occupied by the lord deputy and his retinue.

While the lord deputy was in the country he writes as an expert on the quality of beer to him, and in the same letter he promises to use his best efforts to procure for the lord deputy’s retinue beds of the first quality in place of some which had been rejected on the ground that they were unfit for the lord deputy’s servants, much less for his gentlemen.

But during the reign of Queen Mary John Plunkett is mentioned frequently as acting on commissions of a legal character, and in 1556 he appears as a member of the Irish privy council. In the latter position he was continued on the accession of Queen Elizabeth, and before she had been 12 months on the throne he was raised to the chief seat on the common law bench.

Although it is not uncommon to find leading men in the Pale adapting themselves to the revolutions in Church and State which the 16th century witnessed, yet Sir John Plunkett is an exceptionally striking example.

In the reign of Edward the Sixth he was one of the few Irish officials privileged to approach the Lord Protector, and was entrusted with the duty of providing for the spiritual care of his own parish; and in the reign of Queen Elizabeth he was prominent in the government of his country, and enjoyed the close friendship of her chancellor, Archbishop Loftus, the chief ecclesiastic of the Established Church, who refers to him after his death as “the good Sir John Plunkett.”

But notwithstanding these indications of his attachment to the reformed faith, he was not only appointed by Queen Mary a member of her Irish council, hut was also admitted to her presence and given by her a grant of lands on more favourable terms than had been originally proposed.

In regard to the affairs of State as well as of the Church he saw eye to eye with the English government. In the winter of 1562 he was one of the three members of the Irish council sent to discuss with Queen Elizabeth the state of Ireland, and he displayed then such zeal for the English interest that her secretary assured him on his taking leave that he would be one of the first remembered for reward. When the controversy arose in regard to the cess the only land-owners in Dublin county, who approved of its imposition, were he and Sir Thomas Fitzwilliam, of Merrion, who was his cousin; and not long before his death he was commended by Archbishop Loftus to Sir Francis Walsingham for the “hearty service and great friendship” which he had always* *extended to “their whole nation.”

Of his discharge of his judicial duties no knowledge is available, but the assistance which he gave in the government of Ireland was of great value, and drew from successive chief governors high praise. In the year 1565, after the battle between Ormond and Desmond at Affane, he was for many weeks at Waterford with Lord Justice Arnold, inquiring into the origin of the encounter; and at the close of the year 1567, when he received the honour of knighthood, he was sent with the Bishop of Meath, under a guard of 50 horse, to Munster, where he remained for several months settling the country after the Desmond confiscations. On that occasion his justice and incorruptibility were eulogized by Lord Justice Fitzwilliam and his successor Lord Deputy Sidney, and a few months before his death, in 1582, an effort to obtain some token of the queen’s recognition of his long service was made by the Irish government, but met no substantial response.

At the time of his death Sir John Plunkett had attained to a very great age. Three years before he is said to have been so blind as to have been scarcely able to see his food, and for some months before his death he was known to be dying. His later years were clouded by attacks made upon him by a step-son. He had been married three times: first to Catherine Luttrell ; secondly to Elizabeth Preston; and thirdly to Genet Sarsfield.

Genet Sarsfield, who is said to have been married five times, was, at the time of her marriage to Sir John Plunkett, the widow of Sir Thomas Cusack, sometime lord chancellor of Ireland, and the attacks made upon him came from her son by that marriage, with whom he had long litigation.

In regard to these he wrote thus two years before his death to Sir Francis Walsingham.

“Truth urged me to visit your honour with those few lines, where I am informed Edward Cusack alleged my book concerning his proceeding contained but lies. I assure your honour every article therein in pith and substance is most true. I look not to live to write any untruth willingly, ‘laudanti se videntur deesse vicini,’ yet in truth a man may be his own herald. I have served my sovereign, beginning the first Michaelmas term of her Highness’s reign to this present, and God be praised, uprightly, without respect to the contrary, and now to fail were too late.”

As he mentions in his will, Sir John Plunkett received with his last wife “no small commodity,” but although “he laid thereunto so much of his own,” he says that he was “nothing the richer.” His references to silver vessels, gilt, partly gilt, and ungilt, show that his cupboard was as well furnished as that of his grandfather; and a chapel adjoining Dunsoghly castle, another adjoining the church of the parish, and a chamber built over a mineral spring in the village, testified to his large ideas and piety. The chapel adjoining the castle lies to the south, and is an oblong building, 21 feet three inches by 12 feet three inches, the plainness of which is relieved by the doorway and the windows. The doorway is in the north wall, and as a tablet with the initials ” I. P. M. D. G. S.1573,” records, it was the work of John Plunkett, knight, of Dunsoghly, and his wife Genet Sarsfield. It is round-headed, with neat mouldings and a bold hood. Under the hood are a rose and fleur-de-lis, which were possibly intended to be symbolic of the Virgin, “the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valley,” and above the hood there is a well-cut slab showing the instruments of the Passion; those in the centre, namely the handle of the scourge, the spear, and the hammer, with the heart, the hands, and the feet, were probably originally of metal set in the existing stone.

Of an east window only the round-headed splay remains, but, owing to its having been built up inside, a window to the west, of two lights with a thin shaft and segmental heads, is in good preservation. Besides these windows there are two smaller windows in the south side, and there are ambries at both ends of the north wall.

As in the case of the blind Lord of Howth, pride in his family and interest in the past were prominent in Sir John Plunkett’s character. In regard to the first trait*, it *is related that he was very angry when a representation of his arms was blown down in Christ Church Cathedral, and in his will he is careful to emphasize his descent from the noble house of Killeen by large bequests to the churches with which that house was connected; and in regard to the second trait, it is recorded that it was from chronicles belonging to him that part of the “Book of Howth” was compiled, and his active support was given to the first proposal for printing the statutes of Ireland.

Of his office he was not a little proud, as a bequest of his judicial gown “furred with madder” shows; arid the fact that Dunsoghly was held from the Crown by royal service, and that it fell to his lot to contribute three archers to the muster, was to him, no doubt, a source of gratification.

As a neighbour at Dunbro, Sir John Plunkett bad a leading gentleman of the Pale, Mark Barnewall, a great-grandson of Sir Nicholas Barnewall and Ismay Serjeant of Castleknock. Their son Edward married a daughter of his stepfather, Sir Robert Bold, by a previous marriage, and is said to have been the first of his name seated at Dunbro.

He was succeeded there by his son Robert, who married Elizabeth Shelton, and was the father by her of Sir John Plunkett’s neighbour. Mark Barnewall resembled in character Sir John Plunkett, being, in the words of Archbishop Loftus, ” a very godly and honest man,” and married a lady who had been previously wife of a son of Sir John Plunkett. He is mentioned first in connexion with the military expeditions against the Scots and Shane O’Neill, in which he served either in person or by deputy, and later on he appears on a mission to the English court on behalf of the Earl of Clanricarde.

But at the same time his own services were considered worthy of recognition, and he is found in correspondence with Lord Burghley about lands in county Kildare which were granted to him, together with a commissionership of the muster in Dublin county.

After Sir John Plunkett’s death Dunsoghly came into the possession of Sir Christopher Plunkett, who was his grandson. He has been described as “an eminent and gracious lawyer,” but he has left no mark in his professional capacity, and ire is now remembered as one of the leading landowners of the Pale in the reign of James the First.

In a peculiar degree his career shows how superficially his class adhered in the reign of Queen Elizabeth to the reformed faith, and how completely they reverted to their former belief in the reign of her successor. To the close of his life Sir John Plunkett remained on terms of intimacy with Archbishop Loftus, to whom be bequeathed his best horse and two spoons, and presumably his compliance with the requirements of the Established Church was considered satisfactory, yet in his will he gives no indication that he wished his grandson to adhere to it, and left him under the care of those who were ill-calculated to promote such an object. He does not mention the lad’s mother, who was a daughter of Sir Thomas Fitzwilliam, of Merrion, and placed all his reliance on his son-in-law, Richard Netterville, whose family became noted for their devotion to the Roman Catholic religion.

The only indication of a Protestant direction in his arrangements for his grandson was his marrying him, while a child, to a daughter of Sir Nicholas Bagnal but if he expected this alliance to be a safeguard, he leant upon a reed. Even during the reign of Queen** *Elizabeth there is reason to believe that Sir Christopher Plunkett had renounced the reformed faith, although it was from the hand of her representative that he received in the summer of 1597, *in his “manor house of Dunsoghly,” the accolade; and soon after the accession of James tire First he avowed publicly his convictions by joining in the petition for toleration.

The favour which was shown to him, in spite of his adherence to the Roman Catholic religion, is not a little remarkable. The attention of the English ministers was drawn in 1609 to the fact that one or his sons, who was being educated at Douai, was concerned in an attempt to bring into Ireland “a girdle” containing “popish books and relics”; but no weight was given to this communication, and his own good services, as well as those of his grandfather, were made in 1610 the ground of a fresh grant to him of his lands, and this grant was followed in 1612 by a licence to hold an annual fair, lasting three days, at St. Margaret’s.

In the Parliament of 1613, to which he was returned, with Thomas Luttrell, for Dublin county, he supported Sir John Everard for the speaker’s chair, and, in the autumn of that year, he gave evidence before the commissioners sent from England as to the oppression of the Pale by the army, and subsequently joined in a petition as to other “grievances and disabilities.”

In consequence of these activities he was summoned to the English court, but his submission and profession of loyalty were considered so satisfactory that he was quickly allowed to return to Ireland, and an admonition was sent to the ruling powers there not to forget to pay him the respect due to one of his rank.

On two occasions, in 1620 and 1623, he was selected to act on deputations to the king concerning economic questions, and disarmed all prejudice by “the modesty, humility, and discretion” with which he represented the need of better regulations for the manufacture and sale of ale and aqua vitae, the registration of marriages, the prevention of ploughing by the tail, and the exportation of horses, and was no less successful in debating the more thorny questions of the woollen and other trades. His grateful sense of the favour shown to him was evidenced afterwards by his assistance in raising an additional subsidy from Leinster.

A life of comparative tranquillity, such as Sir Christopher Plunkett enjoyed, was not the lot of his son and successor, James Plunkett. Through his marriage to a daughter of Francis Tregeon, of Goldon, James Plunkett involved himself in the misfortunes of a Roman Catholic family of high rank in Cornwall, and, in an attempt to recover the Tregeon estate, which had been confiscated, loaded his Irish estate with debt.

Before the rebellion he had mortgaged the lands of Dunsoghly, St. Margaret’s, and Newtown to Sir Henry Tichborne, the lands of Harristown to Sir Francis Blundell, who assigned his mortgage to Mr. Justice Donnellan, and the lands of Portmellick to Richard Molyneux, and, owing to his inability to meet his liabilities, he was himself consigned to prison, where his health gave way.

About the time of Sir John Plunkett’s death, Dunbro passed, by the death of Mark Barnewall, to his son, Robert Barnewall. The position of the latter was, like his father’s, a high one, and during his occupation, Dunbro is mentioned as the site of a great stone house.

In addition, he had a house in Dublin, in Bridge Street, and a funeral entry which records his death at Dunbro, on Good Friday, 1685, mentions that his body was “worshipfully conveyed” from Dunbro to Bridge Street, and thence on the next day to St. Audoen’s church, where it was interred.

He was twice married, his first wife being a daughter of his neighbour, William Talbot of Malahide, and his second wife being an English lady, Kinborough, daughter of James Good, a physician, of Maiden, near Kingston-on-Thames.

Although he is said to have allowed priests, Jesuits, and friars to resort to his house, Robert Barnewall appears to have been at one time a member of the Established Church, and his successor, James Barnewall, who was the son of his second wife, is noted as having been “backward in the matter of the Rebellion,” and was described as a Protestant.

Owing to James Plunkett’s impecuniosity, Dunsoghly became the residence of its mortgagee, Sir Henry Tichborne, who was a foremost figure in Ireland at the time of the Rebellion, and filled for about a year the office of a lord justice.

He was a younger son of the first baronet of the line associated with one of the most remarkable trials of modern times, and he had been knighted in 1623 by James the First in his ancestral home in Hampshire; before then he had made acquaintance as an officer in the army with Ireland, where he appears first in connexion with Ulster, as governor of Lifford and a commissioner for the Londonderry Plantation, and subsequently as a resident in Dublin and its vicinity.

At the time the Rebellion broke out he was living with his family in Dunsoghly castle, and in a letter addressed to his wife some years later, he thus describes his experience:- “The 23rd of October, 1641, as you may remember, I was living at Dunsoghly, within four miles of Dublin; and upon the general terror which was in the country, when all English and Protestants forsook their habitation and fled from the face of that horrid Rebellion, I thought it not safe to remain alone behind them, but when in the evening of the next day I had scattered a party of rogues that lay lurking about my house, I retired with you and my family the same night to Dublin.”

But, as one of “the chiefest places built” in the county of Dublin, Dunsoghly castle was before long garrisoned by the government, and a few months later, on March 9, 1642, Ormond, while in command of an expeditionary force, dated a letter from it.

The garrison was, however, surrounded by the enemy, and on April 30, six or seven of the soldiers, while seeking food in the neighbourhood, were surprised, and only two or three escaped alive. The castle was then strongly fortified, and ramparts, as described by the President of the Royal Society of Antiquaries, were thrown up. During the eventful years that followed, Sir Henry Tichborne can have seen but little of Dunsoghly.

Immediately after leaving it, in the autumn of 1641, he was sent to Drogheda as its governor; in the spring of 1643 he was appointed a lord justice; in the winter of 1644 he was taken prisoner by the forces of the parliament when returning from a mission to the king ; and in the spring of 1647 he was fighting under Colonel Michael Jones on Dangan Hill.

In his apology, as his letter to his wife may be called, he shows that his life was one of ceaseless activity against the Irish army, whether serving in the ranks of the king or the parliament ; and his skill, heroism, and rapidity as a military commander, and his policy and integrity as a statesman, have found a panegyrist in Philip Skelton, who considered Sir Henry Tichborne’s apology comparable to Caesar’s Commentaries.

When the Restoration came, Sir Henry Tichnorne was found still in possession of Dunsoghly, and was returned afterwards for some years as the occupant of the premises, which were described as a castle, dwelling-house, barn, stable, and offices with an old orchard, and a garden plot, and were rated as containing five chimneys or ten hearths.

But his death, which took place in 1667, occurred at Beaulieu, near Drogheda, which he had been granted in recognition of his services to the Restoration, and Dunsoghly was then the residence of one John Avery, who in 1672 acted as a churchwarden of the parish.

At that time Dunbro was in the occupation of Colonel Francis Willoughby, a poor cavalier, the premises being described as a decayed house, barn and stable with an old orchard, and rated as containing four hearths. Colonel Willoughby belonged to a family that was well known in the seventeenth century in Ireland.

His father, Sir Francis Willoughby, who was a very distinguished officer, had served in Ireland throughout the reign of Charles the First, and had been a member of the provincial council of Munster and of the privy council, and one of his brothers, Sir Anthony Willoughby, had been governor of Galway, while another brother, Dr. Charles Willoughby, was an eminent physician and naturalist, and presided over the meetings of the first philosophical society in Dublin.

For some years before the establishment of the Commonwealth, Colonel Willoughby had been in command of a regiment, and he was considered by the parliamentary authorities so influential a royalist that he was interned by them for several years at Chester.

After the Restoration, the references to him are concerned with his poverty, which was accentuated by his having a large family, and with his health. The latter was so bad that his death, which occurred in 1678, was reported long before it took place, and in the petitions for his relief his wife, who enjoyed the friendship of the Countess of Ossory, was the mover.

Excepting on the lands of Dunsoghly and Dunbro, there were when the Commonwealth was established no residences of any importance in the parish of St. Margaret; “in all the rest were thatched houses and cabins,” and of these but few. The only other buildings were the ruins of the church, a mill, and the walls of a castle on the lands of Harristown, which had belonged to a branch of the Warren family.

But before the Restoration, the castle on the lands of Harristown was probably rebuilt, as the inhabitants included then 11 persons of English descent. In Dunsoghly there were eight of English birth, and in Dunbro five. As regards the land-owners the representative of the Plunkett family, Nicholas Plunkett, was predominant, the only lands not held by him being those of Dunbro and those of Kingstown, which were divided between John Fagan, of Feltrim, and George Blackney, of Rickenhore.

Nicholas Plunkett was the grandson of James Plunkett, and had succeeded to Dunsoghly on the death of his grandfather, which took place a few days after the outbreak of the rebellion. His father, John Plunkett, who was his grandfather’s only soil, had died ten years before, in or about the year 1631. He had married Elizabeth Roper, daughter of Christopher, second Lord Teynham, and great-grand-niece of Sir Thomas More’s biographer, and left by her Nicholas, who was born in 1629.

After his grandfather’s death, Nicholas Plunkett became the ward of Sir Henry Tichborne, who paid £2,000 for the trust, and as soon as he could bear arms he entered the service of Charles the First, and is said to have served in England as well as in Ireland.

At the age of nineteen, in the winter of 1645, he was by the side of Sir Thomas Esmonde, whose daughter he married, in Wexford when the Marquis of Antrim’s kinsman, M’Donald, of Glengarry, was defeated. After he came of age he obtained an order to enter into possession of his estate, but he was subsequently ordered as a Roman Catholic to transplant into Connaught, or to leave the country, an alternative which he accepted, and lie is said to have been afterwards imprisoned in England and Flanders, where he saw military service.

After the Restoration he had difficulty in regaining possession of his estate, of which he had allowed Sir Henry Tichborne to retain the custody, and was in impecunious circumstances. He was at that time a widower with four children; but a few years later he appears as the husband of a second wife, Elizabeth Fisher, and his children had increased in number to seven.

Before then he had recovered his estate, but he does not appear to have resided in the castle, and in 1681, when he was elected churchwarden of Finglas, an office from which on account of his religion he was excused, lie is described as of Harristown. About the time of the Revolution he withdrew from Ireland, to which he never returned, and in the summer of 1689 he was in France. According to his friends in Ireland he had gone to that country because he found “the severity of the persecution against Roman Catholics in England was so extreme that he could not live there”; but two years later he was back in London, and resided there until his death in 1718, when he had attained to nearly 90 years of age.

Some 25 years later a proposal was issued for the publication of “A faithful history of the rebellion and civil war in Ireland, from its beginning in the year 1641 to its conclusion, written by Nicholas Plunkett, Esq., and communicated to Mr. Dryden, who revised, corrected, and approved it”; and a considerable part of the manuscript, which was never printed, is still in the possession of Nicholas Plunkett’s descendants. By Carte, who made considerable use of the manuscript in his “Life of the Duke of Ormond,” its authorship is ascribed to a “a society of gentlemen who lived in 1641”; but the use of the first person singular in the part that remains tends to confirm the claims of the prospectus, that it was the work of Nicholas Plunkett, and references in it to Cox’s “History of Ireland” indicate that it was written subsequently to the Revolution.

Although a most devout Roman Catholic, Nicholas Plunkett was a man of much width of view. In his history he attacks unsparingly the Pope’s nuncio and his party in the Confederate council; and under his will he appoints Protestants as trustees of alms-houses erected by him at St. Margaret’s for poor women of his own faith.

One of his executors was the alleged rival of Swift for the deanery of Derry, tire Rev. John Bolton, to whom he refers as “his worthy and loving friend”; and another was Sir John Bennett, a serjeant-at-law, and judge of the marshal’s court, in London, to whom he acknowledges his indebtedness for long and great service, and advice in “his worldly affairs.” For him both the first and second Duke of Ormond had a high regard, and a case of pistols given to him by one of them was a most cherished possession. In his will he refers to kindness shown to him and his wife by the Countess of Arlington, the sister of the Countess of Ossory, and leaves her an emerald ring and a piece of plate. **

Under Eighteenth-Century Owners. **

Once again the succession to Dunsoghly skipped a generation. Nicholas Plunkett’s eldest son, Christopher Plunkett, who married a daughter of a neighbour, Henry Segrave, of Little Cabragh, predeceased him, and on Nicholas Plunkett’s death Dunsoghly Castle became the residence of Henry Plunkett, who was Nicholas Plunkett’s grandson.

Like his grandfather, Henry Plunkett, who never married, was a most devoted Roman Catholic. In his will he enjoins that the rites of that Church should be fully performed for him; he directs that his body should be buried in the churchyard of St. Margaret’s, as near the bodies of his father and mother as possible, and he gives minute directions as to his funeral, at which he desired six clergymen should be present, and also the alms-women.

Before his death, which occurred in the winter of 1760, Henry Plunkett had lost his younger brother, Nicholas Plunkett, who had been twice married, first to a daughter of Nicholas third Viscount Netterville, and secondly to a daughter of Daniel Dunne of Brittas, in the Queen’s county. By his second marriage Nicholas Plunkett left three daughters who succeeded to Dunsoghly. The eldest, Mary, married Michael Grace of Gracefield; the second, Catherine, married Henry Malone of Pallas Park; and the third, Margaret, married Francis Dunne of Brittas.

At the beginning of the 18th century Dunbro was the residence of John Linegar, a citizen of Dublin, who ambitioned the position of a landed proprietor. For its purchase he had borrowed a large sum of money, which at the time of his death in 1708 was secured by a mortgage on the lands, but in his will he desired that every effort should be made to avert their sale. By his executors, two Dublin aldermen, his wish was observed, but 20 years later his daughter and only child, Anne, and her husband John Chope disposed of Dunbro for 22 years’ purchase and a broadpiece worth £30.

The new owner of Dunbro was the Right Rev. Welbore Ellis, then Bishop of Kildare and afterwards Bishop of Meath, and as he made it a condition that the furniture was to be left in the house, he became probably its occupant. Although from him the Earls of Normanton and the Viscounts Clifden descend, he was himself the son of a Yorkshire clergyman who found some difficulty in educating a very large family.

The success in life of the bishop and of his brothers was almost phenomenal, in the case of some as followers of King James, in the case of others as followers of King William, and their prosperity was a striking testimony to the goodness and influence of the first Duke of Ormond, to whom they owed in the chief degree their advancement in life.

In a vast number of letters addressed to his brother John Ellis, who held various government offices, the bishop reveals his whole life and character. He is seen first in 1690 at Christ Church, Oxford, with very modest views as to his attainments and prospects, and considering, like Swift, an application for the chaplaincy of the Lisbon factory; then, in 1693, he was appointed chaplain to the second Duke of Ormond, a place to which the chaplaincy of the Duke’s troop of guards and a living in Northamptonshire were added; and in 1705 he was raised to the Irish episcopal bench as Bishop of Kildare, with the deanery of Christ Church, Dublin, in commendam.

His character was typical of that of the Irish prelates of his time, and mundane affairs largely engrossed his attention. After his appointment to the see of Kildare his letters relate mainly to the management of houses owned by his brother on Arran Quay, in regard to which he constituted himself an amateur agent, and about which he thought it necessary to send his brother a weekly report.

In order to save postage he sent the letters through an official channel, and as he was obsessed with the idea that they would be opened and read, he wrote in an obscure style to baffle an interceptor. But sufficient is clear to show that he was constantly on the look-out for preferment, if possible in England, but otherwise in Ireland, and that he considered the Duke of Ormond had shown little gratitude for his services in consigning him to the see of Kildare.

At the same time it would be a mistake to suppose that be neglected such ecclesiastical duties as fell to his lot, or that he was lacking in integrity, or in some degree of piety. As dean of Christ Church he attended service in his cathedral twice every day, his attendance not even being interrupted by a stay at Templeogue to drink the waters; and he wrote to his brother with much self-satisfaction that in a few years he had worn out two silk habits, although one usually sufficed a bishop for his life.

In spite of the solicitation of his friends he refused to ordain clergymen, as he believed there were too many in the Irish Church, and on more than one occasion he commissioned his brother to procure him books of a devotional character. He was no stranger to misfortune in his private life, five of his children dying in infancy, and his house with all it contained being consumed by fire, and these losses he accepted in the most Christian spirit, and on those and other occasions be made reflections which are truly admirable.

To the see of Meath lie was translated soon after his purchase of Dunbro, and his death took place in 1734. He left two children, a son who was created Lord Mendip, and a daughter who married Henry Agar and through whom the bishop is now represented. At the close of the 18th century the bishop’s son is said to have built a house that now stands on the Dunbro lands.

In the 18th century another house of importance appears in St. Margaret’s parish, Pickardstown, to the east of Dunbro. An advertisement of the house, which appeared in the year 1735, describes it as surrounded with fine walled gardens, planted with the best fruit-trees, and 60 acres of land, divided into small parks by well-grown hedges. A brew-house and malt-house, as well as a good hen-yard and pigeon-house, were amongst its attractions.

Afterwards it became the residence of Sir Henry Cavendish, whose son has been mentioned as a resident at Frescati. Sir Henry Cavendish, who was the first baronet of his line, was connected with Ireland through his mother, who was a granddaughter of Archbishop Ussher, and had come to this country with his kinsman, the third Duke of Devonshire, on the duke’s appointment as lord lieutenant.

Here he became a commissioner of the revenue and a member of parliament. In Mrs. Delany’s correspondence there are several references to Sir Henry Cavendish’s second wife, who was mother by a previous marriage of the first Earl of Clanwilliam, and as a child of six years old the future peer gave Mrs. Delany “twenty frights” for her china and shells. A dinner at Pickardstown, “a flat but pretty enough,” is also mentioned by Mrs. Delany, at which everything was vast, especially a turbot, of which she had never seen the equal in size. **

Ecclesiastical History.**

The ecclesiastical ruins at St. Margaret’s, which are greatly defaced and overgrown, comprise those of a church, and a chapel adjoining it on the southern side. The church was a simple oblong, 49 feet six inches long by 18 feet two inches wide. As it was built on the edge of a mound, the west gable was prolonged northwards into a large buttress. In the north wall the pieces of a recessed doorway remain, and in the east wall a window is sufficiently preserved to show that it consisted of two tall lights, with tripod heads, and a flat, shallow hood. There are gaps in the west and south walls, which may represent other opes, while in the latter of these walls two window splays, at the eastward end, were closed by the erection of the chapel.

The chapel, which is 26 feet long by 15 feet three inches wide, is entered from the west, where the ground has evidently risen considerably. The doorway, which is pointed, with neat, shallow mouldings, has a bold hood, with angular bands. The north corbel of the hood has a rough, flat, human face, and another face projects on the keystone. Above the keystone is a moulded frame of red sandstone, which held once a slab of white marble, bearing the words, “Johannes Plunkett die Dunsoghlia, Miles, Capitalis quondam Justiciarius Regii in Hibernia Banci, hoc struxit Sacellum.”

In the south wall there were two windows ; the head of the eastern one shows that it had two plain, chamfered, oblong lights, divided by a shaft. In the north wall is set a rude calp slab, greatly worn, with two arched spaces. One of these, that on the right, is now broken, but bore the words, “Ut vos sic fuimus quondam, ut nos sic eritis tandem et cito pede,” with a skull at the head, and crossed bones at the foot. The space on the left bore the inscription, “In hoc tumulo tumulantur ossa Plunketorum Dunsoghlia, quorum haeres Nicholaus Plunket et uxor ejus Elizabetha Fissher hunc fieri fecerunt Ano 1675.”

At the south-west corner of the ruins there is a large modern tomb-house having three Gothic doors, with cleverly designed, and cut, capitular corbels. Further to the south of the ruins there is another large modern mausoleum with elaborate pilasters, renaissance doorway, white marble friezes, and Ionic and composite capitals. The oldest tablet faces the west, being over the principal door, with the remains of a white marble cornice with triglyphs, hour-glasses, and angels. It bears arms of a griffin segreant impaling to the dexter a lion rampant and to the sinister an uprooted tree; the crest is an eagle’s or griffin’s head couped issuing from a wreath the motto “Regalis et fortis quamvis eradicatur viresco”; and the inscription “I.H.S. Andreas Morgan, mercator, Dubiniensis, hoc** **Monumentum pro se suaque familia fieri testamento mandavit Filii ejus Patri optimo moerentes posuerunt; ipso Andreas obiit die tertia Martii Anno 1746; requiescat in pace.” A marble tablet to the north bears an inscription also to the same family, but 70 years later in date. The other recesses have no tablets.

The church of St. Margaret was anciently known as the church of Donaghnoir or the church of the east. [The name has been generally printed as Donaghmore, or the great church; but, as Mr. Charles M’Neill has informed me, in error. He has referred me to Sir John Gilbert’s edition of the “Crede Mihi,” in which on a page given in facsimile the name will be found distinctly written as Douenachnor; and he has also pointed out to me that further confirmation of that name being the correct one is to be found in Gilbert’s “Register of St. Thomas’s Abbey,” p. 32Q, and in Alen’s “Repertorium Viride.”] and according to tradition it indicated by its name that its founder was St. Patrick.

In the 13th century it is included under the name of the chapel of Donaghnoir in the corps of the chancellor of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, but from the “Repertorium Viride” it appears that at one time there was a dispute between the Archbishop of Dublin and the Prior of the Hospital of St. John without Newgate as to its advowson.

Towards the close of the 15th century bequests to it are found. Before the dissolution of St. Patrick’s Cathedral the tithes of Dunsoghly, Ochtermoy, and Harristown, together with the rent of fourteen acres near the church, were leased by the chancellor of St. Patrick’s Cathedral to Sir John Plunkett, and this lease was renewed after the dissolution by the Crown on the condition that Sir John Plunkett provided a fit chaplain for the church.

The chapel adjoining the church is mentioned in his will by Sir John Plunkett, who desired his body to be buried in it, and directed his executors to complete it as he had determined. The church was in ruins at the beginning of the seventeenth century, but the chapel was probably kept in repair, and in 1718 Nicholas Plunkett left his bailiff an annuity “to the end that he might take care of the little chapel adjoining the church of St. Margaret.”

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